sbdcsierra Chapter 154 Buying Cotton
Chapter 154 Buying Cotton
Two or three groups of people came and then retreated.
The young man was sharp-eyed and pulled the shopkeeper's sleeve, asking him to watch the door.
The shopkeeper saw the customer and was about to speak when he went out.
He slapped the waiter's head angrily, "You are a pig-head. When you see someone, don't you go up and greet them? Why did the boss let you come? You have no manners!"
Li and the others were not happy. "Boss, please explain clearly. Who doesn't have good eyesight?"
"That's right, why are you cursing?"
Their backs were to the door, so they did not see any guests coming in or out.
Zhou Guo saw it clearly and raised his lips, thinking that the price was agreed upon.
Sure enough, the shopkeeper surrendered and said, "I dare not, I dare not, I scolded the boy. Ladies, I will give you this change, and give you some rags, okay?"
He was extremely anxious at the moment and had to send these people away quickly, otherwise he would not be able to do business with others for the rest of the day.
Scraps of cloth?
Li nodded and said, "Okay, we don't want your white cloth anymore. Please give us some more scraps of cloth."
The shopkeeper was particularly easy to talk to at this moment. He winked at the waiter, and soon the waiter brought out several bags of rags from the back and distributed them to everyone, one bag for each family.
The one for Zhou Guo was specially left for last, and she took it from the waiter, who even smiled at her on purpose. She saw that her bag seemed to be bigger than others, so she smiled back.
With only a small change left, everyone paid contentedly.
Each family took out silver ingots. Zhou Guo bought the most and had to pay seven taels of silver. Li took out the largest silver ingot.
The shopkeeper and the waiter were dumbfounded when they looked at the silver ingots in their hands. What they took out was silver!
Such a huge sum of silver!
These people really don't look alike!
After paying the money, the group of people left contentedly holding their own cloth.
When I went out, I ran into a bunch of people outside who were watching the fun. I saw that they were holding such a large package of cloth in their arms. Although I couldn't see what kind of cloth they bought, there was so much of it, even if it was just linen, it would be a huge amount.
They were all stunned. Most of them were shop owners and their clerks from nearby shops. They thought it was because of a few feet of linen because of the loud noise inside. They wanted to see the shop owner's excitement, but they didn't expect this man to come out with so many pieces of cloth.
The shopkeeper really made a fortune on this trip!
I'm envious, very envious!
"Come on, make way, make way, we are going out." Zhou Guo was carrying a pile of cloth and asked people to make way without any courtesy. What are you looking at? Have you never seen anyone buy so much cloth?
The crowd made way for a path.
A courteous voice came from the side, "Young Master, my family sells cotton and makes mattresses. You have bought so much cloth, do you need to buy some cotton? I will give it to you at a discount."
Ok?
Zhou Guo and the others paused. Cotton? We want that, too.
When the man saw that there was something going on, he immediately smiled more attentively, squeezed over, and lifted the cloth off Zhou Guo's shoulders with a smile and caring, and pointed to the shop not far away and said, "Look, it's not far away, it's right next to it, let's go in and take a look?"
"Okay, then let's go in and take a look." Zhou Guo had never seen such a hospitable person. He looked happy with his smile. He nodded in agreement. It didn't matter where to buy cotton. A smiling attitude was always better than a stern face, and it was pleasing to the eye, wasn't it?
"But you have to give us a discount. If not, we won't accept it and will just turn around and leave." The aunts said with a smile from behind. After such a bargaining in the cloth shop, they felt that they could go anywhere.
The cotton seller walked in front happily carrying the cloth, and diligently led the way for Zhou Guo and his group.
The other merchants nearby were envious and slapped their thighs in regret, saying, "Why didn't I speak up earlier? Alas, someone else got the upper hand."
"After buying cloth, they will obviously buy cotton. You are just selling rouge and powder. Look at how they are dressed. Can you sell them? Tsk, my grocery store has everything. There must be something they want. I will wait aside and invite them to my store to have a look when they come out."
The other merchants thought this made sense and ran forward, waiting for the person to come out so they could take him to their own shops.
Zhou Guo and his party entered the shop. As soon as they entered, they saw a wooden frame covered with a thick layer of snow-white cotton. An old craftsman was carrying a hanging bow on his back and was beating the cotton with a wooden hammer.
The snow-white cotton was all over the room, and the old master's hair, eyebrows, beard, and shoulders were all covered with snow-white cotton wool.
Seeing them coming, he raised his eyelids and then lowered his head to work again.
Zhou Guo was fascinated by the scene. The wooden hammer struck the bowstring again and again, making a crisp and clear sound. Pieces of cotton wool were picked up by the bowstring and then knocked off. In this pleasant rhythm, the cotton wool was fluffed and soft.
"Don't mind, ladies. This is my old father. He has poor hearing and can hardly hear well." The shopkeeper explained hastily, fearing that they would think that the old master looked down on them and ignored them.
Li and the others didn't care about this at all. They looked around the store and asked, "What's the price of your cotton?"
The shopkeeper said quickly, "That's right. The cotton here is divided into four grades: special, top, medium, and bottom. Special is the best. The cotton is snow-white without any residue or other colors. The top is also white, but it has some residues. It's not so clean. The middle is not so white. There are rain rust cotton and dead petal cotton that haven't been picked cleanly, and other bad cotton. The bottom is the cotton that doesn't grow well on the branches and the last batch of late cotton. The cotton is small and the color is not good. It's all these."
"The best stuff is good but also expensive, 92 wen per pound, the best is 76 wen per pound, the medium is 56 wen per pound, and the worst is cheaper, 30 wen per pound."
Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment. This best price was too expensive. With so many people in the family, each person would need at least one and a half kilograms of cotton to make a set of clothes. That would cost more than a hundred coins. For a family of more than a dozen people, it would cost more than a thousand coins.
The main reason is that they just spent so much money on buying cloth, and now they have to buy quilts and cotton. How come the money is spent so quickly?
Li pulled Zhou Guo, who was watching the cotton-picking, over and said, "Guo Guo, calculate how many kilograms of cotton we should buy and what kind. I think we don't need such good quality cotton. How about buying a few kilograms of high-quality cotton and a few kilograms of low-quality cotton and mixing them together?"
Zhou Guo said, "Mom, if we want to buy cotton, we should buy the best quality. Good cotton is much warmer. A pound of the best quality is 76 coins, right? We can reduce it to 66 coins per pound. Even if we buy 10 pounds, it will cost less than 1 guan, and 20 pounds will cost less than 1.5 guan. There are eleven people in our family. From clothes to pants to shoes, each person should buy 3 pounds, which is 33 pounds. But we are still young and don't need that much. Each person should buy 2 pounds, which is 22 pounds, 1,452 coins. If you think it's not enough, then buy a few pounds of medium-quality cotton. It will be enough for making shoes. We bought so much good cotton cloth, we can't stuff it with low-quality cotton, right?"